Getty US First Lady Melania Trump wearing a jacket emblazoned with the words "I really don't care, do you?"
First Lady Melania Trump has finally explained the controversial jacket she wore with the phrase, “I really don’t care, do u?” written on the back. She admits she was sending a message by wearing it but says it was directed at what she called the “left-wing media.”
Watch the video:
Melania Trump tells @TomLlamasABC she wore the ‘I really don’t care’ jacket “for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me. And I want to show them that I don’t care.” #MelaniaTrump t.co/EqEyfZkJvZ
In an exclusive interview with ABC News on October 12, 2018, Melania was asked why she wore the jacket. Previously, her spokeswoman had commented on the attire on Melania’s behalf when controversy exploded after Melania wore the coat on her journey to the border. The communications director, Stephanie Grisham, had claimed there was “no hidden message.”
To ABC, Melania said of the jacket: “It’s obvious I didn’t wear the jacket for the children. I wore the jacket to go in and off the plane… it was for the left-wing media that was criticizing me. I was telling them I don’t care… it won’t stop me from doing what I feel was right.”
After the visit, she says she put it back on because she saw the media “was obsessed with it.”
Here’s a reminder of what the jacket looked like:
This is the jacket Melanie Trump @FLOTUS wore when getting on the plane to visit the workers at a shelter for children in McAllen, Texas. I kid you not.
“It was kind of a message, yes. I would prefer they would focus on what I do and my initiatives, than what I wear,” the First Lady said of the news media.
In the ABC interview, Melania said that, during her border trip, “I met with the Border Patrol agents, and they’re doing a great job.. I asked them how I can help to reunite the children and parents.” She added that she did not approve of the family separations. She said she disagreed with President Trump’s initial stance on that. “I was blindsided by it,” she said, adding that she told him “I feel that’s unacceptable, and he felt the same.”
Melania wearing the jacket.
The jacket was controversial because the First Lady chose to wear it on her way to the border during the family separation debate. Melania wrote the jacket on the leg of her journey from the White House to Joint Base Andrews and as she boarded Air Force One. Once she left the plane in Texas, she was no longer wearing it, however.
The coat is advertised as a “Green Hooded Military Jacket” by Zara and sells for $39. A children’s version reads “Let’s go and don’t look back.”
The irony of Melania Trump’s distasteful Zara parka slogan is that this is what the kids version of the jacket says… t.co/wEnWbkoVCR
Grisham, the communications director for the First Lady told CNN, “It’s a jacket. There was no hidden message. After today’s important visit to Texas, I hope the media isn’t going to choose to focus on her wardrobe.”
Grisham tweeted, “Today’s visit w the children in Texas impacted @flotus greatly. If media would spend their time & energy on her actions & efforts to help kids – rather than speculate & focus on her wardrobe – we could get so much accomplished on behalf of children. #SheCares #ItsJustAJacket”